Duterte orders DoJ
panel is formed.
The task force will have as members representatives from the Office of the Ombudsman, Commission on Audit ( CoA), Civil Service Commission (CSC), Office of the Executive Secretary (OES), Office of the Special Assistant to the President and the Presidential Anti- Corruption Commission (PACC).
The PACC earlier implicated 36 PhilHealth officials in irregularities in the state-run firm, including 10 board members, 11 officials from the executive committee and other central office units, and 15 others from one of its regional offices.
PACC Commissioner Greco Belgica said the commission had recommended to the President the firing and charging of the 36 officials.
“The bulk of the problem at PhilHealth is that the hospitals keep claiming very high receivables that they (PhilHealth) do not validate. And PhilHealth just pays and pays. It’s like being charged in a restaurant and paying without examining the bill,” Belgica said in a radio interview.
The House of Representatives and the Senate have launched their own inquiries into alleged anomalies at PhilHealth.
During a Senate hearing, PhilHealth President Ricardo Morales revealed that about P10.2 billion of the agency’s budget was “potentially lost” to fraudulent transactions and schemes in 2019.
Morales said he ordered an investigation after some Phil
Health officials claimed that the procurement of an information technology ( IT) system for the agency was overpriced.
He defended the IT project, saying it would help PhilHealth root out fraud and scams.
Morales also was accused of coddling a syndicate in the agency that allegedly pocketed P15 billion in PhilHealth funds the past year.
PhilHealth has come under harsh scrutiny in recent weeks after its anti- fraud legal officer Thorrsson Montes Keith resigned over what he said were fraudulent schemes in the agency.
Guevarra assured PhilHealth officials that the DoJ investigation would be fair.
“We shall base our actions on such facts as may be established and such conclusions as may be reasonably inferred therefrom,” he said.
Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, chairman of the Senate health and demography committee, on Friday called on all government agencies to support the efforts of the DoJ task force.
“We expect the Task Force — spearheaded by the DoJ, along with the Ombudsman, CoA, CSC, OES, and with the help of the PACC — to do everything to stop the problems in PhilHealth. It will focus on the problem of the whole organization, in and out of the agency, or what we call ‘deeply rooted and systemic corruption,’” Go said.
Go recommended to Duterte the creation of the task force last Wednesday.
He also proposed that the task force focus on PhilHealth for now but could eventually cover other agencies with issues of systemic corruption.
“It is not only PhilHealth that has problems. We know there are other agencies that need to be rid of corruption in their systems,” Go said.
“We cannot simply rely on its leadership to cleanse its ranks. We need a ‘ whole-of-government’ approach through a task force that has enough ‘teeth’ to investigate, audit, prosecute, file charges and put in jail those responsible for these anomalies,” he said.
On Friday, PhilHealth issued a statement giving its side on the IT project overpricing issue.
PhilHealth said its information technology projects were not described as “overpriced” in an internal audit report but were defined as “discrepancies.”
“The discrepancy found was the difference in the actual prices against the budget estimates provided. Prior to bidding, the proposed budget has to be updated again based on the current market canvasses and computed in average, median, and lowest with allowances for inflation,” it said.
It added that the estimated prices placed in the projects never became part of the budget as they were updated after the canvassing to reflect the budget, which has become lower.
PhilHealth explained that the P115 million supposedly allocated for one desktop was for 1,341 desktops that cost P86,000 each, while the P 4.1 million for laptops covered 80 different laptops of varying specifications.
During the Senate inquiry, PhilHealth Board Member Alejandro Cabading said the state health insurer’s P 2.1 billion IT budget was rejected by the board because it was not detailed enough. PhilHealth denied this, saying the budget’s approval was deferred because it still had to be presented to the audit committee.
PhilHealth noted that Jovita Aragona, its senior vice president for information management, never proposed a supplemental ICT budget of P302 million, but only requested that the 2019 projects that were not implemented be carried over to December 2020, which the board granted as a supplemental budget instead.
Cabading also alleged that Morales supported the revised IT budget of P750 million, but the state insurer said it was Cabading who instructed that the budget be reviewed by an IT expert.
PhilHealth invited Cabading to sit down with its Information Technology group to clarify the issues and disperse any “cloud of doubt.”
Responding to Gabriela Rep. Arlene Brosas’ challenge for Duterte to fire Morales, PhilHealth Vice President for Corporate Affairs Dr. Shirley Domingo said Morales has the necessary management experience needed for the job.
“The higher you get in an organization, the more management instead of technical skills you need. That should also be the case in PhilHealth given that you have technical people to recommend technical decisions.” Domingo told TheManila
Times in a text message.